Learning to Leap

Sleepovers. Aren't they fun? I am not a big fan and here's why: 1. nobody settles down to sleep no matter how much extra time you give them to talk and 'get it out of their system' 2. the younger children feel left out because the older children get to have all the fun, so you try to include everyone in the sleeping in the fort adventure. This NEVER works. 3. they stay up super late and get up super early, too excited to have their buddies with them to waste time snoozing. 4. mom and dad pay for all this fun for the rest of the day with cranky, overtired children I have a new reason to not love sleepovers. I just discovered this one last night, or rather, this morning at 3am. Sleeping peacefully, dreaming of a time when my home knew some peace before Hank joined us. It was a lovely dream, really. Suddenly I was awakened by the sound of crashing and banging and stomping on the stairs. When I heard the unmistakable sound of the jingle of dog tags, I knew at once th...

We are almost officially out of the diaper stage. I say 'almost' because we are still in the night time diaper stage. Because I am not a big fan of changing sheets every single day, I force my sweet children to wear 'baby diapers' (which they hate) each night and cut off the beverage supply about two hours before bed. This is no small feat. My girls become dehydrated every evening around 8pm. Tonight the youngest even asked if she could have milk. Milk! I can't get her to drink one measly ounce of milk with breakfast. She begins her gagging and dry heaving routine after even a tiny sip during the day, but once the threat of bedtime looms ever nearer, milk suddenly sounds like the sweet nectar of life to her. She can't get enough, I tell you. Also not a small feat is getting them stuffed into the night time diapers. You need to know that we are rather cheap. When we see less expensive options, we go for it if it will work at all. Who needs name brand ...